. Recent headlines announced a sudden rise in the teen birthrate and Planned Parenthood and CNN lost no time in blaming the abstinence education programs backed by Christian conservatives. For one thing, the unexpected increase in pregnancies among teenagers hardly represents a crisis: it’s a 3% increase after 14 straight years of decline, and teen pregnancy rates are still more than 30% lower than they were in 1991. It’s also ridiculous to single out the limited funding for abstinence education, when the federal government still devotes six times the money toward programs that emphasize birth control and that Planned Parenthood enthusiastically supports. Moreover, most commentators forgot to mention that birthrates not only increased for teenagers, but also went up for women in their 20’s, 30’s and even 40’s. This increase could even indicate a cultural change that’s basically positive: with more and more Americans looking at children as a blessing rather than a burden. Unfortunately, it also no doubt reflects the rapidly disappearing stigma attached to out-of-wedlock birth and the general obsession with sexuality in our society. In any event, it’s outrageous to blame religious conservatives who are the strongest voice for placing that sexuality in a responsible marital context.